


Passing Time

by Ruby_fruit



Category: Warcraft (2016), World of Warcraft
Genre: Crossover, F/F, Kinda, LionTrust, M/M, Time Shenanigans, game/movie x-over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 10:17:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7753807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruby_fruit/pseuds/Ruby_fruit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>everything i write for this fandom is ridiculous and indulgent and i don't care. movie!Lothar and game!Khadgar. alternate title: chromie grudgingly fascilitates a booty call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passing Time

When Verris tells him they’ve caught an intruder rifling through the corpses in the barracks and they believe he’s a mage, Anduin thinks he knows what to expect. An elderly man, some arrogant and violet-stained scholar who will neither care nor understand that he’s committed a crime. The silver hair of the figure Anduin can see through the small, barred window of the door they’ve shut the mage behind seems to confirm his thoughts. Anduin sighs -- this is just what his night needs -- and enters the room.

The mage’s face lights up when Anduin enters the room, his bright blue eyes crinkling at the corners like he is some long awaited friend and not his jailer. It’s more emotion than Anduin can remember seeing on the face of any mage besides Medivh, and the sight stops him in his tracks for a moment. The hair is indeed silver, but that’s the only thing Anduin’s assumptions were correct about. The mage’s pale hair is close-cropped and swept back from a face that is largely unlined, save for crow’s feet and smile lines. From what Anduin can see under the robes, the mage is nearly as broad-shouldered as he is, and, rather than cold and arrogant, the mage’s expression is good natured, friendly.

"Commander! Fantastic--" The man stands up and reaches out. Anduin, feeling annoyed and off balance, grabs the offered arm by the wrist with the intention to intimidate his prisoner a bit--he's never met a mage who know what to do with a physical attack. 

Or he hadn't until now. The mage's eyes go wide as he registers Anduin's intent and the air in the room thickens and hums with power. The wrist Anduin is holding vanishes along with the rest of the mage in a shimmering blur. Anduin reaches for his sword and turns to face the threat, or tries to. He can’t move; pale purple light binds him chin to toes. 

"Now, Anduin. None of _that_ unless you buy me dinner first." The mage's voice is warm and amused as he steps back into Anduin's line of sight. He doesn't even look worried, with his eyes sparkling and a faint flush on his cheeks. Anduin meets the stranger’s eyes and wonders: who did they catch? Who allowed himself to be caught?

"What are you doing in my city, spell-chucker?" Anduin asks, muscles straining as he tests his bonds. They don’t budge.

The humor abruptly fades from the mage's face. "I am trying to save an old friend. A few, if I can. And I would like your help to do it."

The man steps back a few paces and Anduin can breathe easier. 

"So, if I apologize for the breaking and entering and promise to explain myself to the best of my capabilities, can we agree to no more manhandling, magical or otherwise?" the mage asks.

Anduin doesn't have much choice in the matter. He nods and the mage releases him.

*

The mage’s name is Khadgar. Anduin sits across from him in the Slaughtered Lamb and feels utterly out of his depth. He looks helplessly at the gnome that had fallen in step with them as soon as they left the barracks and she shrugs cheerfully at him. She seems to be along mostly to grumble at Khadgar and flirt with the barmaid. 

“So you're from another world?” Anduin asks. 

“Oh yes,” Khadgar said, quite unbothered, “you've got a Khadgar here already, and generally that would mean I could not be here -- one Khadgar per universe, that's it! But,” he continues “you've also had a timeline irregularity, just enough of a loophole for us to slip in and lend a hand.” He winks at Anduin.

The gnome -- Chromie, Khadgar had introduced her as -- scoffs into her cider. Anduin stares at her, quite beyond manners at this point, and when she looks back, he sees in her wide, clear eyes a river of gold.

“He’s not explaining it well, but you humans never do,” she says, leaning forward to drag her fingers through the condensation on the table. “Your timeline has been stained.” She draws a broad line with her thumb, then she dips a finger in her cider and flicks liquid over the line; the liquor spreads, muddling the straight clear line, and a few drops run down, creating tributaries off the main line.

“Bother,” Chromie sighs. “I can’t explain it either-- you guys haven’t even got the _words_ for it.” 

On the tabletop, the streaks of cider continue to grow and twist, weaving together in increasingly complex and improbable ways until Chromie absently dashes a hand through them.

“Anyway, someone mucked with you and we’re here to set things straight,” she says with a smile. 

Anduin leans back in his chair and drains his glass before flagging the barmaid for another. It seems like the best course of action available to him.

"So there's another Khadgar here," he asks some time later. 

“Yes,” Khadgar says, leaning around Chromie, who's watching the barmaid watch her while polishing glasses. “Bright young thing if I do say so myself. He was injured in one of the orc’s first raids.” He sighs. “That was your hiccup-- it wasn't supposed to happen. In the proper course of things, you'd have met him, and not me, in the barracks. But something muddled with you so here I am. For a few days, at least until I arrive to replace myself.” Khadgar finishes with a warm smile. 

Light. Well at least they won't overlap themselves. Anduin’s not sure he could take it. 

 

*

 

They go to Karazhan. Khadgar isn't even winded at the top and Anduin resents him deeply as he leans on a pillar and wheezes, his muscles numb.

Medivh's greeting freezes in his throat and he looks between Chromie, Khadgar, and Anduin with an expression Anduin can't parse.

“Oh, look at you,” Khadgar says, a mocking tone in his deep, smooth voice, “such a tentative, desperate hold you’ve got on him. Things didn't happen the same way at all here, did they, Sargeras?” 

Medivh's eyes go wide and green and the room explodes in fire. 

*

Khadgar lays a gentle hand on Medivh's face and the Guardian’s blue eyes open, dazed but clear, no spark of green left. 

“I know you,” Medivh murmurs. 

“Not yet, my dear friend, but you will,” Khadgar says, and reaches without looking to gather Anduin and Chromie in as the familiar runes of teleportation light up on the floor. 

*

“Oh,” Khadgar says, standing in Dalaran with Medivh at their feet. “Oh my. Your world, Anduin, is--” he trails off before addressing the empty air: “And what are you doing here, my dear?”

There's a woman standing before them. She doesn't appear, she's just _there_ , black robed with a terribly scared face. Anduin jumps and reaches for his sword in the same motion, and Chromie reaches up and puts a restraining hand on his. 

Khadgar steps forward and takes the woman's hands; she smiles at him fondly.

“A'lodi,” Khadgar says, “how ever did you come to be here?”

“A very long story,” A'lodi says, “one you do not have time for.”

“How long do you have?” Khadgar asks gravely. 

A'lodi's smile goes sad. “Not long, but long enough for him,” she nods over Khadgar's shoulder at Medivh’s still body.

“What will you do?” Khadgar asks, all his focus on her.

“Do not fret, old friend, I have somewhere safe to wait out the night. I would not harm this world,” A’lodi says. 

“From light into darkness,” Khadgar says, low and sorrowful.

“And from darkness, light,” A'lodi counters, with a smile. 

“What,” Anduin hisses furiously but quietly at Chromie, “the fuck.” 

Chromie sighs and looks up at him. “Your friend is acting as an anchor for something very powerful and evil,” she says, nudging Medivh with her foot. “A'lodi can cleanse it from him, but she's going to have to go away for a long time after.” Chromie pauses. “This all happened very differently on Khadgar's world.” 

“Oh really,” says Anduin, strained. “What happened _there_?”

Chromie gives him an unimpressed look. “All of you died and left Khadgar to fight alone,” she says.

Anduin keeps his mouth shut after that.

Whatever A’lodi does to Medivh is as simple as her laying a hand on his head. 

“Binding somone to your will takes a great deal of power,” she says, turning to face Anduin with a mischievous smile, “but freeing one only takes a sharp knife.”

 

*

 

Deadwind Pass is too quiet. Garona stands beside Khadgar, Anduin and Llane flanking them, and the rest of the soldiers fanned out behind them. 

The orc facing them looks nervous and determined. Strange, to find such familiar emotions on so alien a face. A small part of Anduin is still not convinced they shouldn’t rout them completely, but that is vengeance talking, and he is a soldier, not a murderer. Khadgar had told them Azeroth would need these invaders and the allies they would make one day, that there would be a time more desperate than this, more terrible than the troll wars. Anduin believed him.

Khadgar smiles down at Garona, warm and fatherly, and Anduin can practically see her fill up with confidence under his regard. She turns to Llane and begins to translate.

As the parties break up, one of the orcs, a huge bald fellow with a hammer the size of a pony, keeps eyeing Khadgar with something like awe, or maybe fear. Anduin wonders what Khadgar said to him; he wonders where Khadgar learned Orcish. The meeting went smoothly enough to make Anduin nervous, but he thinks of Garona’s stumbling explanation of Orcish honor and Khadgar’s description of the Orc’s homeworld -- a dead and shattered thing -- and has to grudgingly admit he can understand these Frostwolves. Not a whole lot of choices for them, with a mad leader on one side and a dead world on the other. Anduin doesn’t _like_ them, but he can understand.

 

*

They’re drinking at the Lion’s Pride that night. In victory-- or the utter certainty that this is all a very strange dream, in Anduin’s case. He drinks, and watches Khadgar, and considers the last few days.

They’re the only ones at the table; Llane is a damned lightweight, and Garona had disappeared upstairs with Chromie, something Anduin absolutely refuses to think about any further. Khadgar seems perfectly pleased to be left with Anduin. He’s an endless well of improbable-to-impossible stories, enjoyable even though Anduin can see him editing himself as he tells them. Anduin has a few himself.

Eventually, they have to buy a room or have the increasingly tired and annoyed innkeeper throw them out.

Going up the stairs, Anduin catches Khadgar’s wrist in a gentler grip than the first time, and smiles when Khadgar looks at him, startled. 

“I’ve bought you dinner, Khadgar,” Anduin says, stepping up, stepping closer.

His confusion lasts for only a moment before Khadgar visibly recalls their first conversation. The silence stretches and Anduin wonders if he misjudged-- not Khadgar's past, but his current interest. Chromie said he died; perhaps they ended badly and Anduin is being cruel. 

"Light forgive me," Khadgar says, his voice strained and hoarse, "I understand now why Nozdormu warned me about temptation." And he takes Anduin’s face in his hands and kisses him. 

Khadgar comes to Anduin’s bed like a man on the eve of battle. His hands move over Anduin’s body possessively, and he kisses him deep and wet, shoving their clothes out of his way. Anduin just tries to keep up, kisses him back, arches up into the greedy hands on him. 

He lets Khadgar turn him over, expecting something fast and rough, and muffles his shock and pleasure in the pillow when Khadgar spreads his ass open with both hands and licks him. Khadgar eats Anduin out until he's cursing and demanding hoarsely to be fucked, cock dripping on the bedsheets and his whole body slick with sweat. He’s noisy with gratitude when Khadgar finally gives it to him.

"The noises you make when you've got a cock in you, Anduin," Khadgar says, low and hot in Anduin's ear, "if I'd known, I might not have been able to resist. You're very handsome you know, even older than I am now."

Anduin feels dizzy and sweltering in his own skin. The other Anduin sounds like an idiot if he'd never taken Khadgar up on this.

At some point in the slow fucking that Khadgar seems content to drag out forever, Anduin hides his face in the pillow, embarrassed like he hasn't been in bed in years with the noises spilling out of him. Khadgar eases a hand along his jaw, turning his face and not allowing Anduin to muffle himself. 

“There you are,” he says, “let me hear you.” Khadgar grinds into him slow and hard enough to nearly knock Anduin off his knees and Anduin chokes and moans. Light, they're in an _inn_ \-- he’s being too loud.

“Oh, you are a rare treat,” Khadgar says. “Don't worry no one else can hear you.”

Well, thank the Light for mages, Anduin thinks, and the next time Khadgar presses his cock deep he doesn't try to muffle the noise he makes. 

*

Chromie -- looking rumpled and with what are definitely lovebites on her neck -- gives him the side-eye when he comes down for coffee in the morning. Anduin glares and points at her with a scone.

“I don’t want to hear a word out of you, hypocrite,” he growls, slumping in a chair next to her. 

After a long moment Chromie breaks into giggles and holds her fist out to him. Anduin knocks their knuckles together and leans back in satisfaction.

 

*

A few days after Khadgar and Chromie both disappear, Anduin gets a rather harried report from Verris that they’ve caught another mage poking around the barracks. By the time Anduin gets there, anticipation is sizzling in his blood and he can barely keep the grin off his face. The hair is dark brown this time, but the posture is the same, as is the boldness. The scar that goes from under Khadgar's eye to his jaw gives him pause -- and a twinge of regret -- but Anduin can see where age will change his face and experience will bolster his confidence. As Khadgar reaches out his hand, Anduin takes his wrist and slams him to the table, pinning his arm with a compass and silencing that dangerous mouth with his hand. He pushes Khadgar’s sleeve up, baring the Kirin Tor brand the other Khadgar had not born and grins. Anduin leans over the furious man.

“What are you doing in my city, spell-chucker?”


End file.
